Genesis
I believe prose poetry is a portal to opening people up to the idea of poetry. When it is surreal or absurd prose poetry, the reader is suddenly, God forbid, having fun with a form of poetry.
As much as this applies to poetry and Mercurius, I think the same is true of the Bible, as we try to make meaningful and relevant ways to make it accessible to modern living.
Genesis
In the beginning, things got real bad, real quick. I think that lost a lot of readers. Those who decided to flip to the back of the book to see how things ended got really freaked out. In Sunday School, there is a hip click of third graders with their own iPhones. One of them, tired of singing, which meant reading the lyrics on the dry-erase board, said that nobody reads anymore and that all of this (hands swirling to suggest “this”) should be summed up in a TikTok. That’s what brings rejoicing and no more wringing of hands.
Exodus
When I was five, I wandered the grocery store in search of my mom for what felt like 40 years, but in truth was more like 40 seconds. Finding her only satisfied my sense of security for a brief moment. Then I remembered the rules, all the rules and sacrifices and punishments, and why I wandered off in the first place.
Numbers
Family history does not feel at all like my history. Cholesterol at 320 feels no different than cholesterol at 150. But I’m told it’s there, part of my code. Good history, bad history. Good cholesterol, bad cholesterol. As I slouch my head and look down at the trunk of my body, there is a fork in the road at my pelvis, a clearer delineation of left side and right side. This is not a revelation. My relatives had this same delineation. Directionally, they chose left or right. Good or bad. Their choices live on as scribed stories on a million tiny cells and corpuscles coursing through my veins. It's no wonder my feet are cemented in cinder blocks and haven’t moved in years, fearful of future mistakes, my own triumphs that still await in a darkened room.